XXIII.

ON PULLMAN, ILLINOIS.

BY MR. DUANE DOTY.1

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: In the evolution of modern civilization, which seems to comprise the subjugation of the material world to man's uses, we note remarkable changes. Within a century, what might be termed the militant age has given place to an industrial age. The characteristic feature of our time is mechanical industry. The change of society has been from that of the rural and pastoral order to that of the urban. Man's capacity to consume the fruits of the earth does not increase in proportion to the improvements in the mechanical appliances by means of which he cultivates the soil. The farmer of to-day, by the aid of machinery, can produce four times as much with the same physical exertion as his father could produce fifty years ago; and this new condition of things necessarily liberates a large number of persons to engage in other avocations, such as the distribution of products, and in manufacturing. The controlling spirits of today may fitly be termed field marshals of industry. They do work upon an immense scale, requiring large numbers of operatives, which means the massing of people together in towns and cities. The rapidity with which this social and industrial change has progressed is indicated in the census reports, which tell us that one hundred years ago only three per cent. of the population of our country lived in cities and towns having a population of eight thousand and over, while to-day twenty-five per cent., or fifteen millions out of our sixty millions of people, reside in such cities and towns. There are now seven hundred and fifty towns in the United States having a population of four thousand and over, showing that one third of our population is already urban. Really, one half of it is urban and suburban.

The railroads of our country have increased 1,700 per cent. in the last thirty-eight years, aiding largely in creating this urban population, and rendering it very convenient to reside in the vicinity of a city. Hence the marvellous growth of cities, both in Europe and America, adapting populations to the changed order of life produced by mechanical industries.

This new mode of life emphasizes the necessity for the careful consideration of sanitary questions and their discussion by conventions of learned and scientific bodies like this.

1An extempore address.-SECRETARY.

The earlier village seemed to be a collection of odds and ends, devoid of everything architectural or scientific,-a mass of tenements and shops, where inconvenient arrangements and disorderly relations might have been improved by an earthquake. That hap-hazard mode of city and village building has passed away. An important step in the direction of improvement in city construction was taken thirty years ago in the building of the manufacturing town of Saltaire in England. This, while an improvement in the homes of operatives, is hardly to be compared with the new departure in city construction made by our countryman, Mr. George M. Pullman. Mr. Pullman, as you are aware, is the president of a great corporation now operating 1,600 parlor and sleeping cars upon 110,000 miles of railway, and controlling properties valued at forty millions of dollars. The cars to be made and the rolling stock to be repaired rendered a larger manufactory for cars a necessity. In the consideration or these business needs, Mr. Pullman thought of much that was far in advance of merely getting a few thousand operatives together. Believing that decent and orderly living, and that comfort, and healthful and agreeable surroundings, in homes as well as in shops, would conduce to the prosperity of both labor and capital, he planned and has commenced building a city which marks an era in the history of labor.

The beginnings of this great enterprise already furnish homes for eleven thousand people-homes built upon broad paved and shaded streets, and in such a manner and with such conveniences as the world has not heretofore seen in the dwellings for an entire community.

Pullman is the only city in the world built scientifically and artistically in every part, and from a central idea within one man. It needed no ordinary courage to undertake an experiment requiring the investment of millions, and to face the adverse opinions of men, opinions often verging upon ridicule, and which, at times, characterized the scheme as unbusiness-like and visionary. But the builder took the risks, and provided workmen with better homes than by their own unaided efforts they could have hoped for; and the results have justified him, for the experiment has proved a success. Mr. Pullman has made the workman more largely than ever before a sharer in the results of good work. Eight years ago he laid the foundations of his new city. He had quietly purchased about four hundred acres of land ten miles south of the southern boundary of Chicago, in the township of Hyde Park, which is an incorporated village, and now the largest and richest one in the world. Purchasing materials in very large quantities, he could build economically. All the work was done from approved plans, and under the direction of scientific men and artists. Miles of blocks of residences were put up, and supplied with gas, water, drainage, and sewerage complete. A distinguishing feature of the dwellings at Pullman is, that the drainage and sewerage all preceded the population, and the soil upon which the city stands is as free to-day from organic contamination as when it was an open prairie. Nearly a million dollars has already been expended in

drains, sewers, and piping of all sorts.

The natural surface of the site is from eight to fifteen feet above the level of Lake Michigan, and it lies upon the west shore of Lake Calumet, a body of water three and a half miles long by a mile and a half in width. It was deemed unwise to permit sewage to flow into this small lake, and it was decided to pump it to a sewage farm which should be arranged for that purpose.

SURFACE DRAINAGE.

The storm or atmospheric water goes from roofs and streets through one system of pipes and sewers directly into Lake Calumet. This water, of course, contains no sewage. Brick mains from three to six feet in diameter are built in alternate streets running east and west, the immediate streets being summits from which the surface waters flow into the main drains or sewers. The fall is sufficient to secure good cellars or basements for all the dwellings in the city, the drain-pipes leading from cellars to the laterals being at least eighteen inches below the cellar bottoms. A two-feet cobble-stone gutter borders either side of every street, leading at short intervals of about one hundred and sixty feet into catchbasins, these basins connecting either with laterals or main drains. This system of surface drainage is calculated to carry easily an amount of water that would cover to the depth of one inch the entire area drained. The heaviest rain-fall ever known in this latitude (six inches in twenty-four hours) was carried off without difficulty by these drains. For the drainage from lots six-inch pipe is used, while for block drainage and for the laterals pipe varying from nine to fifteen inches in diameter is used. The parks and play-grounds are thoroughly drained. The amount of vitrified pipe already laid in the town is as follows: 18-inch pipe, 4,500 feet; 15-inch pipe, 7,000 feet; 12-inch pipe, 7,000 feet; 9-inch pipe, 16,000 feet.

There are also several miles of six-inch pipe. In addition to this piping from six to eighteen inches in diameter, the necessary quantity (about ten miles) of four-inch tile has been used to carry water from cellars and down spouts to laterals, and for draining the parks and playgrounds.

The lands surrounding the town are well drained by ditches.

DEEP SEWERS FOR SEWAGE.

In every other street running east and west, and lying between the streets having brick mains for surface drainage, there are sewers made with vitrified pipe which lead into mains running north and south to a large reservoir under the water tower. These mains enter the reservoir sixteen feet below the surface of the ground. These glazed pipe sewers are from six to eighteen inches in diameter, and constitute another and separate system of drains which carries the sewage proper, by gravity, to the reservoir. The smallness of this pipe ensures a scouring which keeps it very clean. The reservoir holds 300,000 gallons, and the sewage is pumped from it as fast as received, and before sufficient time.

elapses for fermentation to take place. The ventilation of the reservoir is perfect. Eight flues run from it to the top of the tower above it, and a twenty-inch flue leads from it to the large chimney which takes the smoke from the fires under the boilers of the Corliss engine. The sewage is pumped through a twenty-inch iron main to a sewage farm about three miles distant; and at the farm end of this main the sewage goes into a receiving tank which contains a screen placed in a vertical position through which substances that are more than half an inch in diameter cannot pass. The pressure of the sewage upon the tile piping in the farm is not allowed to exceed ten pounds to the square inch. The sewage from dwellings now amounts to one hundred gallons a day for each person of the population. This seems a large amount; but when it is remembered that every tenement is provided with the best of closets and sinks, and ten per cent. of them with bath-tubs, and that the watertaps are all inside the houses, it will be seen that a large amount of sewage per capita is unavoidable. The laterals of the deep sewers run in the alleys. All these sewers are provided with manholes at intervals of one hundred and fifty feet, and also with means for flushing them.

THE SEWAGE FARM.

About one hundred and forty acres of land have been thoroughly underdrained and piped for the reception and purification of sewage, with which these acres are irrigated by means of hose. Hydrants are placed at convenient intervals, so that the distribution can be easily effected. There is nothing offensive about this work, nor can one detect noxious odors at the pumping station, nor often at the farm. All organic matter in the sewage is at once taken up by the soil and the growing vegetation, and the water, making from one hundred to five hundred parts, and sometimes even more, of the sewage, runs off through underdrains to ditches which carry these filtered waters into Lake Calumet. Where the sewage water, purified by filtering through the soil, leaves the drains, it is as clear as spring water. One acre of land takes

care of the sewage made by one hundred persons.

The primary object of a sewage farm is to dispose of sewage; and the question in Europe is, not what such farms can be made to pay, but at how little loss may sewage farms be run. By so much as you get returns from your farm, by that amount do you diminish the cost of the disposal of your sewage. Sewage must be disposed of in some way at any cost. The proper sewage of towns is becoming one of the gravest questions, as it affects nearly one half of the population of the country. It must be taken up and considered by states, as has been done in Massachusetts. The productive value to society of those who die from preventable causes, and the value to agriculture and horticulture of sewage and other waste, cannot be put at less than one million of dollars a day for this country. Add to this loss a larger one, which results from the diminished capacity consequent upon unsanitary environments, and we begin to realize the vital importance of sanitary measures. There ought

to be intelligence enough in the land of schools and journals to fully appreciate the bearings of the appalling fact that about as many people in this country die annually from preventable causes as perished during the whole period of our recent civil war, or losses of life fairly attributable to the war.

OPERATIVES.

The average number of operatives in all the industries at Pullman for the year ending July 31, 1888, was five thousand, and their earnings were ten thousand dollars a day. Favorable conditions, pleasant surroundings, the absence of deleterious influences, and steady employment, are highly conducive to the contentment and general prosperity of the people of Pullman.

The average annual earnings of all operatives in Pullman, inclusive of men, women, and children employed, have been as follows:

In no other place where similar work is carried on are the average annual earnings of operatives so large as at Pullman. There are no idlers in the place; all are busy earning money, and are self-reliant and selfsupporting.

SANITARY FEATURES OF THE CAR SHOPS.

The lowest ceilings in any shop are 16 feet high. The ceiling of the cabinet shop, where five hundred men work, is 25 feet high. The ceiling of the freight car shop is 35 feet high, and that of the hammer shop, where axles and other heavy forgings are made, is 70 feet high, and ample lattice-work at the top and sides secures perfect ventilation. All shops where wood-working machinery is used are ventilated by means of exhaust fans and galvanized iron piping connected with all the machines, which not only change the air of all the rooms once an hour, but carry off all dust and shavings to the furnaces to be burned. A suitable force of men and boys keep the shops scrupulously clean.

Well warmed, lighted, ventilated, and tidily kept, the car shops at Pullman, which now embrace twenty-five acres of floor space, cannot be surpassed in advantages and comforts. The shops first built are supplied with gas; the later ones have electric lights. The roofs of shops are partly of glass, in addition to the unusual amount of window space lighting large rooms from all sides.

HEATING.

All the shops are heated by steam, and are kept at a uniform temperature. The health and comfort of workmen have been carefully considered.